une manifestation!

Une manifestion, or a protest rally, happened to take place in Montpellier yesterday. Believe it or not, I was there! Not just watching, but marching with a crowd of angry students. Don't worry, I don't just randomly protest now, there was good reason. I was studying for history with my french friend Elodie, and she got up to go to the rally. She wanted me to come with. I took one look at my history, blah, and then at her, packed up my stuff, and joined her as we headed to the posh corum district downtown. Earlier she explained to me why the students were protesting. As of yesterday a new law, CPE, was enacted by the president of France. According to this law, if you're under 25 years old then during the first 2 years you work can be fired for NO reason. This law is supposed to help eliminate "chommage" or the people out of work. Unfortunatly, the french business laws are strict and make companies fearful of hiring new people because its hard to fire them if they need to. So instead, they just don't hire people, eliminating jobs. The problem of the law is this, there is a high probablity that it will be abused. Student workers, under 25, are much cheaper to employ bc they have tax breaks. So a company would be tempted to keep the worker until the 23rd month, fire them, and hire a new younger student fresh out of college. Its just a bad idea all around. They want a more fluid economy like ours but this is a bad plan. Once it passes for young ppl, they can pass it for adults too, so a bunch of adults joined in the protest. And unlike the states, if there are bunch of protests for a law, its much more likely to be repealled. So, off we went. I met some of her other friends and we were given lots of fliers. The only thing I could compare it to is a huge football rally or something. I told her this is as close as france comes to a Wisconsin football game. The people were nuts. They sang songs like: (catchy ones that stick in your head!)
Un pas en avant
3 pas en arriere
C'est la politique, du governement!!

One step forward,
3 steps back
That's the politics of our government!

So I marched, pretended to be french, sang, and experinced real french student life. This weekend I'm going to Nimes with Elodie to see her home and stay over to work on our big history dissertation. She had dinner at our apartment last night and we had a blast. She's very sweet, and very helpful for my french! Unfortunately, she is now accustomed to my "american" accent so it doesnt help me work harder on sounding more french. I sound like a french person trying to speak english sounds to us. Imagine that! After seeing all my pics, she thinks my life must be just like the american movies (football games, vacations, down home kinda fun). That made me laugh. I think she really liked that in all my pics everyone wore big WI gear. I think I'll have my mom bring her a sweatshirt like the ones she was so impressed by. I want her to come back and visit with me! Maybe she could go to a badger game!

On a different note, seeing the spirit and enthusiasim of the young french ppl makes me think. If this energy was given to Christ, imagine what could happen! They care so much and they try so hard to change things. What if they were changing the country for Christ? What a revival would be here, it'd be crazy. Pray that one day this will happen!